The Garment Center Historic District has recently been listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Known for its pristine collection of 1920’s-era loft buildings as well as the source of recent zoning controversy, the historic district comprises nearly 25 blocks in midtown Manhattan, and roughly spans the area from 34th to 41st Streets, Sixth to Ninth Avenues. The Garment Center Historic District contains a total of 251 buildings, of which 215 are listed as contributing properties. Listing on the Register is an honorary designation that makes contributing property owners eligible for participation in certain federal historic preservation tax incentive programs, but does not impose preservation restrictions on affected properties.
Built almost entirely between World War I and the Great Depression for the garment industry, many of the historic district’s buildings were designed by preeminent architects working during the period, including Ely Jacques Kahn, Emory Roth, Blum & Blum, Schwartz & Gross and Starrett & Van Vleck. These buildings once collectively housed the largest garment-manufacturing workforce in the world.
The Garment Center has been the source of much controversy since the City Planning Commission’s announcement in February of 2007 that it is planning to unveil a still-pending proposal to ease the stringent zoning restrictions of the Special Garment Center District (SGCD), which is situated almost entirely within the new historic district. Enacted in 1987, the SGCD zoning requires the maintenance of approximately 5 million square feet of space for manufacturing and apparel-related uses. Industry groups and the city estimate that approximately 800,000 square feet is currently being used in such a capacity.
Landlords have long complained that the zoning is outdated and artificially depresses rents, while textile unions and manufacturers have fought to preserve affordable production space in Manhattan. Market rents for Class B and C office spaces are currently 2 to 3 times those for comparable spaces restricted for manufacturing use. The new zoning regulations are expected to drastically reduce the amount of square footage reserved for manufacturing use to as little as 350,000 square feet, thereby enabling owners to convert existing manufacturing spaces to office use.
“The federal historic preservation tax incentive programs now available to contributing property owners offer substantial economic assistance in both the maintenance and/or conversion of these important historic properties,”
The Trust for Architectural Easements is one of the nation’s largest not-for-profit organizations dedicated to voluntary preservation through easement donations. The Trust protects more than 800 historic buildings across the United States and approximately 550 historic properties in New York. For more information about the Trust’s local preservation efforts, the Federal Historic Preservation Program and the donation process, contact the Trust at 1-888-831-2107 or visit www.architecturaltrust.org.
Media Brief:
Garment Center Historic District Boundaries
The historic district occupies a swath of midtown Manhattan roughly bounded by Sixth Avenue on the east, Ninth Avenue on the west, West 35th Street on the south, and West 41st Street on the north. The boundaries, generally speaking, encompass the central core of the Garment Center, out from which radiates a much wider area with related history and uses to the east and south.
Building Types and Architectural Styles
Buildings within the proposed district are for the most part commercial. By far the most common type is the loft building. Most of the district’s buildings were constructed between 1896 and 1931; not quite two dozen survive from earlier decades, another dozen from 1935 to 1957, and half a dozen from the 1960s. In recent years development has picked up, and there are several new buildings and quite a few sites under construction.
A surprising number of buildings that predate the development of the Garment Center survive in the district, and represent earlier architectural styles. These include loft buildings that predate the zoning resolution, as well as a church complex, hotels, a pre-Civil War firehouse, and many tenements. There are also a number of non-commercial buildings that date from the general period of garment center development.
- FOR A MAP OF THE HISTORIC DISTRICT OR A COPY OF THE COMPLETE NOMINATION REPORT, CALL 888-831-2107 -
